The Strange Disappearance of Jim Henson's Muppet Babies (1984) 

Wow that's cool man I'm 34 now 89 baby here this used to coke on nick ju ior back than early 92 to probably 95 at least from I can remember I was in preschool kindergarten around those times and still😢about it I wish we can ne I the 80s/90s again

Same age. I felt chills. I miss the 1980's. Peak humanity, right there.

@@calanon534 I have The Muppet Babies Rock It To The Stars CD!👶🐸🐻🐷

@@SuperMarioBrosIII ..AND your username is based on the defining video game of the generation.. Gotdangit, I wanna go baaaaaacckk!!

I too miss those times.

Of course, the live-action segments of movies and TV shows like Wizard of Oz, Indiana Jones, Johnny Carson, the actual Muppets in one of their movies, the Spider-Man cartoon (with an appearance from Stan Lee), and Star Wars (Amazingly enough, Muppets, Spider-Man, and Star Wars are now all owned by Disney) back then obviously created a HUGE nightmare if they would have even tried to negotiate between all of these companies regarding any home media release. Back then, all of these companies truly thought that this property would only be seen a few times on TV so they allowed this to happen.

It would cost a fortune to get all the licensing agreements renegotiated for a video format.

Disney should have thought about that when they still had money.

@@Attmay It’s also about, is it worth the cost? Is there even enough of an audience where getting the licensing issues worked out would be even profitable? Those are all things that have to be weighed in. It’s a business.

I would love to share this my kids

I have quite a few. There was the episode with Polly the parrot. Polly talked so much and repeated everything he heard, and it caused problems between the babies. Another episode is when the babies jumped to the wrong conclusions about a conversation Nanny was having about getting rid of one of them when in actuality she was talking about getting rid of one of the old chairs in the nursery. The Snow White and the Seven Muppets is another one of my favorites. It's so many. I can't name them all.

@@josephclegg3562I remember the one about “getting rid of them”. It was a good episode.

Kermit Bickle

God’s lonely frog. “You talkin to me? I’m the only frog here. You must be talking to me.”

My favourites are the time travelling one and the one where they are on Mercury and Gonzo is Hermes

I'm a monster, I hate it. I don't know why, near as I can tell it's because I have bad memories from watching it. It literally makes me cringe when I see stuff from it, but cannot figure out why

Me too, the pop culture tie ins were awesome.

❤

Me too.

Skeeter was just made exclusively for the show. Not one muppet was made of her.

Same here. Waking up at 530 to watch it with my brother.

I caught the last season or two of it on Saturday mornings in the early 90s, but my strongest memories of the show are from watching the reruns on Nickelodeon every weekday afternoon from ~’92 to ‘96.

Right? Summer of '84, man!

Yeah wow, that really stood out to me. Went back and looked at the lower ones to. Top Secret! and The Natural there to.

@@Luke5100 From the late 70's till about '05 or so was when the world was truly alright. Admittedly, not perfect... but still pretty damn cool.

The series lasted long enough to use footage or ideas from many of those movies

Me too!!!

Send her this video.

Are you Scooter? Is your sister Skeeter?

Find her before it's too late.

Go get your sister friend.

Life With Louie was more of a cartoon biography (not 100% accurate of course and some changes had to be made for making it more kid friendly) of his childhood and not a de-aged cartoon like those others (Tiny Toons is more fitting in that category than Life With Louie. Even though Tiny Toons shouldn't be there either). And some of the stories and lines are actually from Louie Andersson's stand up routine. RIP Louie Andersson.

Muppet Babies was the original Rugrats!

@@JW666 Technically Tiny Toons wasn't de-aged characters. They had younger COPYCAT characters, but the ACTUAL Looney Tunes were still their normal selves as their teachers. Baby Looney Tunes would be a better example.

@@WOLVERINE25TH You're correct. Been so tired I couldn't think straight, but you're right. Fixed it.

1988-1992 was a great time to be a viewer. Disney put out quality cartoons like Ducktales and Darkwing Duck, Saturday morning was at its zenith, and even Fox was starting to get their act together. I miss those times.

Only 2 I remember was the one where they kept being too loud and waking their cop neighbor that worked overnight. And the one where Piggy left a skate out that one of them tripped on and got hurt and she kept hiding it was her. Because of course she did. She was unbearable to me as a kid.

​@@ericbrown8479 Indeed. Piggy was quite atrocious.

"When the world feels kind of weird and you wish that you're weren't scared Just close your eyes and make believe and you cam be anywhere!"

@@NotThatGuy_YepThatGuy "I like adventure, I love romance, I've got great jokes, Animal Dance!"

@@tts8361 "Is everything alright in here?"

The theme songs to Muppet Babies and ThunderCats are the best ever.

YES NANNY! @@kildogery

The show was great. The only thing l didn't like was that they replaced Bunsen and Beaker with Bean Bunny. Once Bean was added, Bunsen and Beaker disappeared.

@@josephclegg3562 Production of the Show ended in May 1990, IMMEDIATELY after the Tragic Passing of Jim Henson.

He actually said "and ran until 1990, one year before...." but he speaks really fast and doesn't leave pauses where pauses are needed (i.e. whenever the written version would have a comma or full stop (period)). Even watching at 0.75 speed I couldn't detect a pause between 1990 and one year (no way I could have kept up with him at full speed, and although I started at 0.5 speed I decided to get a bit ambitious and switched to 0.75 part way through the video).

What do you mean practically lol

Maybe it’s not on cable tv.

People just don't subscribe to channels these days.......

It's so much more watchable than 'the toys that made us' too, which itself has good research but insufferable presentation.

Because, this channel doesn't appeal to the 10 to 15 year old demo, which is the largest watching demo on RU-vid. It's also not super "topical" in what it covers. Therefor the algorithm doesn't push their videos on the home page. Most of the topics they cover are from 30 to 40 years ago, which by it's very nature, means that most of the people interested in watching will be anywhere from 30 to 45 years of age. They also only produce one video a week instead of 3 to 7. That typically translates to slower growth due to longer wait times between new content. I honestly don't think they're really sweating it. Secret Galaxy knows what they're making, and who they're making it for. They'll most likely never get rich or famous, but they can still make some decent money doing something they enjoy.

and now I can't shake the image of Nanny speaking jive XD

​@@twotonedearly😆

@@twotonedearly "Cut me some slack, Jack!"

So would I

Its like some companies just want to see Jolly Rogers everywhere...

@@Sephiroth144 🎶Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of rum!🎶

Bootleg versions are not that good, though I tried one. I want a real licensed version.

@@Sci-Fi-Mike Original source material availability is a problem piracy rarely addresses. Somewhere out there may be the animation cells, or a TV station master reel.

Oz, who make no mistake is a brilliant puppeteer and voice actor and a good director, is a bit thin skinned at times with a very specific vision of what makes the Muppets the Muppets. And with Henson gone, there's really no one around now to mitigate that. Clearly even back then, he was a bit difficult.

@@sdelmonte But Henson wasn't? Oz and Henson MADE those puppets. If anyone should get a say about what happens with them, it's those two--and the original puppeteers, those who are still around.

The Muppets was intended for an adult audience though.

​@@LikaLarukuIt was made for the entire family, of various ages... It didn't cater to any specific AgeDemographic.

@@PirateJohnson Sure - though how many of the references did you get as a 5 year old? Or even a 10 year old? The muppets on the Muppet Show were a stealth delivery for adult, and at times, subversive, humour. Sesame Street on the other hand was purely for kids.

I love Muppets Take Manhattan.

Barbara Billingsley was June Cleaver & the voice of Nanny, hence the comparison.

Yes I wish I could find this version and not the newer one. I might be 39 but I want to see if again

You can find most, if not all of them on RU-vid.

@@WOLVERINE25THTHANK YOU (great name btw)

You missed the part where he talks about the legal issues that prevent the show from being released today?

The show is hard to find legally because of the movie clips it used.

Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Sesame Street, the Peanuts, Superman, Popeye, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Bugs Bunny, The Jetsons, etc. would all like a word with you on that.

Most definitely. Disney probably wouldn't let them use the Star Wars footage from that one episode or the Indian Jones footage

@@Jamessmith-xk3fh Yeah, but Disney now owns the Muppets and most of the things they used footage from. I suppose there could be issues with CBS, but I think Disney would be the ones releasing it. It would be excellent to have on Disney+.

@@brianjl7477 There's also footage from _Star Trek_ (owned by Viacom/Paramount) & _Ghostbusters_ (the dual pair of original films owned by Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures, although the rights to the _Ghostbusters_ name actually default back to Filmation Studios [the same company which animated the original _He-Man_ & _She-Ra_ cartoons of the '80s & in the '90s on into the '00s did the stateside dubbing for the _Dragon Ball_ / _Dragon Ball Z_ / _Dragon Ball GT_ anime], since they actually came with their own version of a ghost-catching brand under that same name years before the popular 1984 film & anything spawned from it was ever developed) and Disney doesn't own those. Also, there's blatant references to other established IPs that go far beyond mere parody, so...that explains the copyright headache that the original _Muppet Babies_ produces, as good as it was.

They're allergic to money

@@NewSquallor There's copyrighted footage of things Disney doesn't own in the original _Muppet Babies_ that Disney doesn't want to pay the copyright holders for the "fair use" of.

Hence, why Disney did a reboot of Muppet Babies, which IS on Disney+.

@@RocStarr913 Exactly. I am still peeved they aged down the demographic for the already "babified" _Muppet Babies_ (comparatively, the 1984 original was for all-ages, not just the designated preschool age like _Sesame Street_ is targeted towards) & Disney decided to have its own character made exclusively for the CGI 2018 reboot, Summer Penguin, more or less take Skeeter's place as the tomboy of the group opposite feminine Baby Piggy. Sure, Skeeter does appear (albeit, sporadically & unnamed outside of her familial sibling relationship to brother Scooter) in seasons 2 & 3, but it was just in a "special guest cameo" role like Statler & Waldorf (who became semi-recurring characters in later seasons of the 1984 original & they were the only adults whose faces were actually shown, excluding those grown-ups envisioned by the Muppet Babies' hyperactive imaginations, such as appearing on _The Tonight Show_ when Jay Carson hosted it using stock footage of the late talk-show host or the animated take on the mine cart escape scene from _Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom_ [with even Baby Fozzie making the joking quip, "This fantasy is rated PG, we're underage" when the villains of the film visibly intimidate the toddler Muppets]), Bunsen & Beaker (although the founders of Muppet Labs were still just kids themselves & were popular enough to warrant appearing in the opening theme, Bunsen & Beaker only appeared in the early to middle seasons of the 1984 original, as they stopped appearing once Bean Bunny became a de-facto regular cast member in the last batch of seasons), Bean Bunny (who, much like Elmo did on _Sesame Street_ [which is fitting, since Bean Bunny was basically created by _The Muppet Show_ crew to take shots at Elmo supplanting Big Bird as the central character of _Sesame Street_ following the Tickle-Me-Elmo craze of 1996], began to basically become a focal point in the final seasons of the 1984 original, even if he never appears in the opening theme song), and adolescent Janice (whose solo appearance as an older Muppet child capable of reading [much to a jealous Baby Piggy's chagrin] was sadly a one-off & there wasn't much interaction between her & her fellow Electric Mayhem bandmate Animal, who was really the only true infant of the main cast, since he still wore his baby bonnet, whereas the rest were slightly older toddlers) were for the 1984 original. In addition, Rolf the dog was completely cut from the roster in the 2018 CGI reboot despite appearing in the 1984 original cartoon due to the earlier of the two being directly patterned after Miss Piggy's "I Will Always Love You" dream sequence starring the live-action Muppet Babies (including Rolf, but conveniently missing Skeeter, who was created specifically for the 1984 cartoon, but remains popular enough with fans that many of us genuinely want her in adult Muppet form [and we don't just mean appearing in _The Muppet Show Comic Book: Family Reunion_ issue made by Boom Studios]; To be fair, she does still appear in the _Muppet Kids_ story books that age up the 1984 _Muppet Babies_ to elementary school age, but after that, Michael K. Frith basically canonizes that Skeeter left her fellow Muppets -- including her computer nerd brother Scooter -- to travel the world as an explanation for why she's not with the adult Muppets now) in _Muppets Take Manhattan_ (the final film in the original Muppet movie trilogy, not counting the 1987 Big 3 holiday crossover special _A Muppet Family Christmas_ which brought together the cast of _The Muppet Show_ [along with the live-action Muppet Babies used in new footage perceived as a grainy flashback shown on the video projector depicting "the very first Christmas the Muppets ever spent together" according to Scooter], the _Sesame Street_ gang of the '80s [Elmo's present, but there's a noticeable lack of a speaking role for him], and the core Five -- Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober & Red -- plus Uncle "Travelling" Matt alongside human/Silly Creature inventor Jerome "Doc" Crystal & his pantomime Muppet sheepdog Sprocket all from _Fraggle Rock_ as well as one of the final appearances of Muppet creator Jim Henson near the tail end of the film before his tragic death in 1990).

Well, I blame the overt references to other established IPs as the sole culprit as to why the show's not seen an official release (the genuine stock footage from _Star Trek_ & _Ghostbusters_ as well as the blatant sendups to other well-known properties that go beyond simple parody).

Right!? I would wish every time that the Star Wars episode would repeat.

I recall one of the earlier episodes had used material from the Kali Ma scene from Temple of Doom. I was a kid when I watched the episode, but I didn't know the Kali Ma reference until I was older. I don't think most young kids would have seen The Temple of Doom.

@@mattb6522 yep! A lot of questionable choices were made with their viewing habits.

@@mattb6522 Baby Fozzie even makes a quick quip/joke about this fact: "This fantasy is rated PG, we're underage."

@@TherealRNOwwfpooh I forgot that part!😄